Looking Glass 4 - Claws That Catch (26 page)

“Oh.”

“At least that's what I think happened. Might wanna run it by Bill when you get the chance.”

“Okay,” the Eng said, his eyes wide. “But I think you're going to have to run it by him. You lost me at Planck-length shell and fundamental cosmic chaos. I can't even pronounce the di-tungsten hexa . . . hydra, uh whatever you said.”

“Being a linguist makes saying chemical compounds easier for me. I can show you the equations and the spectral analysis if you'd like to see them,” Miriam said distantly. She was only half listening to the Eng at this point.

“No, that's shiny,” the Eng said. “Actually, on second thought—”

“I just fired them over to your e-mail,” Miriam said. “Anyway, we can produce the molycirc we need in the fabber. It's slow, it's about the slowest thing the fabber makes, which is why I left it as the last part we're going to have to replace. But we can do it. We just need a source of osmium. We also need some molybdenum but there's so much chromoly steel on the ship that won't be a problem.”

“A source of osmium?” the Eng said. “I don't happen to have one on me . . .”

“Then find one,” Miriam said. “I'm sort of busy here.”

“Yes, ma'am,” the Eng replied, snapping to attention. “I'll get right on it.”

“Osmium?” Captain Prael asked.

“A heavy metal,” Weaver said distantly. “Atomic number 76 on the periodic table, atomic weight 190.23, in the platinum group, extraordinarily dense due to the lanthanide contraction.”

“Which, apparently, we have to stabilize,” the Eng noted.

“I know what osmium is,” Prael snapped. “More or less,” he added, less assuredly. “I used to know all this . . .”

“So do I,” the Eng said. “And all the rest. I mean, I knew it was a lanthanide but I had to go look it up again to refresh my memory.”

“Lanthanide?” Prael said. “That's what uranium is. It's not radioactive, is it?”

“No, sir,” Bill replied. “Lanthanides just have higher density than their position on the periodic table would suggest due to contraction of their electron shells. Most of the heavy metal radioactives are lanthanides, but all lanthanides are not radioactive.”

“I did find out it is a bugger to extract from all the other metals it's usually associated with,” Commander Oldfield said.

“That's not an issue,” Bill said, looking up. “The fabber will handle the extraction.”

“How?” the Eng asked curiously.

“If I knew that I'd be making gigabucks back on earth,” Bill said. “Or a Hexosehr. But all we need is some osmium ore.”

“And where are we going to get some in deep space?” the CO asked. “That's the issue. I'd really like to have all my guns working before we get to an area where there might be Dreen.”

“Asteroids,” Weaver said. “Comets. Osmium is one of the deposition metals that geologists look for to determine major impacts along with iridium. I think we need to go asteroid mining. What's the nearest solar system?”

“How much of this stuff do we need?” Chief Gestner asked.

“A lot,” Miriam replied. “Almost five kilograms.”

“That's a lot?” Gestner asked.

“Uh . . .” Miriam temporized.

“That's about sixty thousand dollars worth,” Sub Dude said, chuckling. “Think gold mining, Chief. Stuff's actually more expensive than gold.”

“Holy maulk,” the chief said, his eyes wide.

“The problem is, we're going to have to run through a bunch of ore to get that,” Miriam said. “The fabber will discard the waste, but it's going to get messy. We'll probably do it in two phases, one that just extracts the heavy metals then another that takes that and makes the molycircs. And this fabber's maw is small. So the stuff's going to have to be broken down into . . .”

“Skull-sized pieces,” Red said. “More or less. You can get your head in the fabber if you sort of turn sideways . . .”

“Yeah, shiny, I get the idea,” the chief said. “That's really going to grapp up my shop.”

“Not if we move the fabber out,” Sub Dude pointed out. “Miriam, didn't we use this model in vacuum when we were working on the ship?”

“It's vacuum rated,” Miriam said. “Everything on the ship that's Hexosehr is.”

“So we do it on the hull,” Sub Dude said, shrugging.

“So the plan is we do the fabbing on the hull?” the chief asked. “In vacuum?”

“Makes the most sense,” Red said. “That way we just leave our mess behind.”

“Shiny,” the chief said. “And we need head-sized nodules, which means breaking up an asteroid to get them. So, who gets that job?”

“Lieutenant Bergstresser, congratulations,” Lieutenant Ross said as Berg walked into Admin. “You'll be pleased to know that I took the numbers you finally got me for vac time and crunched them.”

“Sorry it took so long, sir,” Eric said, stretching. “I was kind of busy with all the stuff the CO dumped on my lap.”

“Understood,” Ross said. “But don't you want to know why congratulations are in order?”

“I assume because you finally got the paperwork filled out, sir,” Eric said, sitting down and turning on his computer.

“That as well,” Ross said. “But the reason that congratulations are in order to you, Lieutenant, is that you have a new title.”

“Oh?” Berg asked, wincing.

“It's called Vac Boss,” Ross said, chuckling. “An analysis of all the numbers on the entire ship, including veteran crew, indicates that you, Lieutenant Bergstresser, have the most time in death pressure. By about an hour, which is pretty good. Or terrible, depending on how you view space.”

“Whenever possible from inside a ship, sir,” Eric replied. “Why do I think this is going somewhere bad . . . ?”

“Breaking something up in space is a nontrivial exercise, sir,” Eric said, looking over at Weaver.

The Blade had entered three star systems in the area, poking carefully to ensure the Dreen hadn't gotten there, yet, and looking for a suitable asteroid field. Many systems didn't have them because of Jovian interactions and the fact that some of the stars were particularly poor in metal formation. They found a good one in the third system and after more hunting found a large asteroid that according to penetrating radar had a high density, a good sign that osmium might be present.

“We had a fun time with a comet last mission,” Weaver admitted. “And he's right. You can't just blow it up; the bits continue with the velocity imparted to them by the explosive. Which is high.”

“There has to be an answer,” Prael said, looking at his XO and the most junior officer on the ship. Berg looked about twelve to the captain and he wasn't sure he trusted him outside the ship, much less in charge of the entire exercise. “We need nodules that are approximately head sized. No more than eight inches on a side.”

“Eight inches,” Berg said, looking at the bulkhead thoughtfully. “Commander Weaver, isn't that about the cutting distance of one of the melders?”

“About that,” Bill said. “But we're going to need a lot of ore, Two-Gun . . .”

“We need to break it down and then break it down again,” Berg said. “We'll need all the boards. And the dragonflies.”

“The idea, Colonel, is to cut it up,” Berg said, standing on his board and looking at the asteroid. It was shaped vaguely like a peanut, a common look for asteroids he'd noticed, and about a hundred yards long. “We need the smallest chunks you can get without starting any particular chunk on a hard trajectory. Your lasers are going to impart movement energy to this thing. We want it moving as little as possible. And be careful, there are boards flying around.”

Practically the entire company had been rolled out on their golden surfboards and the officers and NCOs were circling the asteroid, considering the mission they'd been given. It wasn't a standard Marine mission, but as Captain Zanella pointed out it was pretty much on a par for Space Marines.

“We shall see how this works,” Colonel Che-chee said, aiming her dragonfly at the rock. “Firing . . .”

“They're just not powerful enough,” the lieutenant reported. “Even with three of them firing at the same point, they're barely scratching the surface. Based on their rate of cut, my calculations say that it will take more than a month to break it down to the point the melders can start cutting. Then there's the smelting process.”

“Too much time,” Prael said. “We're supposed to have been to the target by then and started our survey. We need a faster solution.”

“Well, sir,” Berg said. “I'm thinking that we might have to blow it up and then try to catch the pieces.”

“That would be ugly,” Weaver said, shaking his head. “Those pieces are not going to be going slow. And we'll have to drill the thing, anyway. Maybe we just find a bunch of smaller rocks. That would be time consuming, but . . .”

“We need the lasers to be more powerful,” Miriam said, shrugging. “We just make them more powerful.”

“You mean they need to be brighter not more powerful,” Weaver said.

“Pedant,” Miriam replied, sticking out her tongue. “But you're right, brighter.”

“That just might work.”

“And that means what?” the CO asked.

“Well, we don't really have the capability to increase the power, which is in watts, of the laser beams themselves,” Weaver explained. “But, we do have the capability of focusing the beams and making them brighter on target meaning more watts per square meter. We need a BMG mirror . . .”

“XO?” the CO said. “BMG?”

“Uh . . .” Bill said.

“Big MotherGrapper, sir,” Berg responded, trying not to grin.

“Oh,” the CO said, obviously trying not to grin as well. “Go on.”

“The . . . mirror will have to be perfectly reflective so it doesn't absorb enough of the beams to heat up and destroy itself and has to have a tight focus, very tight. We'll shine all the lasers on the mirror and then focus all the beams down to a centimeter sized spot on the asteroid. That should be enough irradiance on target to cut it.”

“So . . . it's like frying ants with a magnifying glass?” the CO asked.

“More or less, sir,” the Ph.D. in optics said, trying not to wince.

“Why didn't you just say so?” The CO was beginning to have visions of the Death Star firing multiple beams out that combined into one, which consequentially destroyed Alderaan. “We'd need a bunch of silicon for the glass I assume?”

“No, sir. We don't need any glass at all. In fact, I'd recommend against glass and that we make the mirror out of Zerodur or AlBeMet.”

“Albe . . .”

“Aluminum-beryllium metal sir. We've got plenty of stuff lying around the ship that is made of aluminum and/or beryllium. Toss some of that in the fabber and regen us a blank of AlBeMet that we can hog a mirror out of. Zerodur is a composite, hmm, better stick to AlbeMet.” Weaver ran his fingers through his thinning hair in thought. “We could build a very thin mirror out of AlBeMet without noticing the loss of material at all and the material is much better suited for the purposes here than glass or Zerodur. We're going to need to fab a mirror that is ten meters or so in diameter though,” Weaver said turning to Miriam. “Can the fabber make that?”

“Well, it can make pieces and then we honeycomb them together and meld them outside,” Miriam said. “We'll just have to make hardware to mount them together and point it.”

“And cool it,” Weaver added. “That much irradiance and the mirror will get hot hot hot. Wait, melding might cause wavefront errors on the mirror that we don't understand. Better to just leave it as a honeycomb.”

“I'm beginning to hear the words 'space tape and baling wire' in my head, XO,” the CO said.

“This used to be my day job, sir,” Bill replied. “There ain't gonna be no space tape on my mirror, that you can depend on.”

“How will we point it?” the CO added. “Can we attach something that big to the ship?”

“Uh, sir, that would be harder to do, I think. Besides, the ship vibrates like hell and we don't want any excess vibrations on the mirror if we can help it. Even AlbeMet has a natural frequency. Think of a fat lady singing and a crystal wine glass.” Weaver thought for a moment and chewed at his lower lip. “We should just take the EVA thrusters off of a couple of suits or a probe and make this thing a free-flyer. We can hand launch it off the Blade and remote control for pointing. This way we ain't pointing the dragonfly lasers back at ourselves. That would be safer. Okay, you're right, there may be space-tape involved.”

“And then the beams will be able to cut the rock?” Colonel Che-chee asked.

“We'll just have to see,” Bill replied. “I need to go off somewhere by myself for a while and do some math. Wish I had a beer to go along with it.”

It took more than a day for Weaver to simulate the mirror design on the ship's computers. It took another day just to fab and assemble the honeycomb pieces of AlBeMet into a ten-meter diameter primary mirror. The biggest issue was keeping it clean since the slightest bits of dust or fingerprint oil or any impurities on the surface would be a place for heat to gather and then a point where the mirror could be damaged and possibly even destroy itself. The surface also had to be manufactured with a precision of millionths of a meter tolerance. Fortunately, the fabber was good for even stricter design requirements. Bill and Miriam had overseen the entire project. While Bill completed the optical design and engineering of the mirror, Miriam developed a control system out of retrofitted thrusters from the EVA suits. And, since Miriam had difficulty lifting hardware much larger than a bowling ball, she had enlisted the help of her two favorite engineering and machinist lackeys, Red and Sub Dude.

Since moving it from the science section outside would have required moving the pieces through the ship, and thus coating them with gunk, Red and Sub Dude cleared out a section of Engineering near the elevator and then planned for it to be evacuated per Captain Weaver's orders. The evacuation of the room would boil off most finger oils and impurities as well as suck out dust particulates. In other words, they sucked it empty to clean it.

“Captain Weaver, we've got the mirror component area cleared and wiped down and I guess we're ready to evacuate it sir,” Sub Dude Gants alerted Bill, who was arms deep in the fabber pulling out the latest mirror holder and cooling junction.